Restless Marc: October 2006

Santa Barbara Island to Catalina

I don’t know how the wind gods know where I am but the wind died as soon as I was about 4 or 5 miles from the island. The plus side was that this gave me a great opportunity to try fly my new spinnaker. So the trip to Catalina was mostly a mellow spinnaker run. (in the fog, of course!!)

When I got close to Catalina, the island finally appeared through the fog. The wind picked up so it was time to change sails again.

Finally I saw my destination the mighty port of Avalon.

Ok it’s not really mighty, it’s more touristy, but it will be my comfy home for the next little bit.

But first a well deserved cocktail!!

Scorpion To Santa Barabara Island

SANTA BARBARA ISLAND

Santa Barbara Island is about 40 miles from Santa Cruz Island. If you go about 5 mph then it should take you about 8 hours. Unfortunately it has to be windy. Not only that but it has to be windy in the right direction. Well, in 9 hours of travel, I only sailed for 2..... The whole day was just motoring in the fog.

So the two windy hours,

they were the two at the end. Just when I was approaching the island and needed to start doing things. It figures.

Once I got anchored it got even windier. As a matter of fact it blew hard all night. The one bonus out of that is that then the wind generator pumps out extra juice for the batteries. If the wind would die down I might try to go visit the island.. The landing seemed a little sketchy for me alone so I decided to only go ashore if the winds calmed down

In the morning it was, of course, still windy. Naturally I decided to move on to Catalina where there was rumors of sunshine and warm weather...

More lil scorpion photos

Coches to Little Scorpion

Thursday Oct 19 - Travel Coches Prietes to Little Scorpion

Light wind day so it's all motoring around the southern end and around to the north east end of the island. I did catch another little mackerel. I was going to eat him but he was just too small. So I used him as bait in the lobser trap :-)

LITTLE SCORPION

Well once I got settled in I went for a hunt with my speargun again. No one was more surprised than me when I speared my first fish!! (ok ok maybe the fish was more surprised but I digress...) A nice Olive Rockfish made for a great evening meal.

Friday Oct 20th

More spear fishing!! I spent almost 5 hours in the water today. Cruising is hard...

SANTA ANA WIND at Coches Anchorage

HIGH WIND DANGER!!

Late in the afternoon I decided to check the weather. Lucky I did because there was a high wind warning being broadcast for my area. This is basically a big storm without the rain. The little cove where I was was just borderline as to whether or not it would be afffected. If it did get hit it would be 40 to 60 mph winds trying to blow me onto the rocks!! It was a chance I wasn't willing to take. Thankfully there was an achorage on the other side of the point. I packed up all my gear and motored over. Now even if the winds came up they would blow me away from the cliff. Out to the ocean. Not a great thing but definately better than bashing against rocks.

Now I wait for the storm.....

THE DAY AFTER

Wow! That really sucked!! I thought I had a pretty good spot but I was off by just enough to make it a REALLY unpleasant experience.. So let's back up a bit. Whern I picked my spot I set my rear anchor as close as I could to the beach so it would be in as shallow water as possible. In "anchor land" this is a good thing. shallow water makes it less likely the anchor will pull out. My front anchor was out in the bay in front of me. Well one thing I didn't account for was SURGE. This is the back and forth motion of water near the surf zone. Well in a storm the surge gets pretty intense. I was well anchored but I was being thrown forward and then pulled back with sudden jerks. This started around midnight and lasted till about 3pm today. Eventually it all calmed down and all I wanted to do was get out of there. All I had tio do was pull up the anchors and leave..

If only it could be so easy!! I took the dingy over to get the anchor out. I got right above it and pulled. It didn't budge. I pulled harder. It still didn't budge. I went past it to the beach and pulled REALLY hard, It STILL didn't budge. CRAP! ok back to the boat pull out the snorkel and swim over and look at the anchor. the chain just disappeared into the sand.. Back to the boat. Get the SCUBA gear. I thought I could just dive down and pull it up. nope.

It took almost an hour and I dug almost 3 feet down into the sand in 15 feet of water but I finally got it back!!

By now it's too late to go anywhere so i drop a single anchor a little farther out and spend a much more comfortable night...

Santa Cruz Island - Alberts Anchorage

Monday

Wow. What a great sail today!! I left pretty early tio take advantage of the lighter winds that are usual in the morning and it made for a great little sail for me. At one point a school of about 50 dolphins passed behind me. They didn't stop though. Maybe they didn't like the music I was playing? The wind stayed mellow until almost at the end of my sail. Most of the day I was only doing two or three knots. Unless I spend a while under two knots I don't like to motor but this time I actually didn't even motor as much as I needed to recharge my batteries!! When I got there the little cove seened too small to fit me and the other boat that was there but it was ok. With front and stern anchors you don't need much room. This was also my first time setting a second anchor ( to keep me pointed into the surge ). It wasn't hard but I am not sure if I did it the easiest way possible. Whatever, it worked. A quick swim and then I'll go visit my neighbors

Tuesday 17th

My neighbors were 4 really nikce guys from Oregon. They were on their way to the Baja Ha Ha. the big sailing rally that will be heading south just before I will. I think there will be about 170 boats doing the trip at the same time. It's not really for me though. A big part of the acoomplishment come from having to do this on my own. Sure sometimes I'll have help but I am doing the trip with or without it.

Today was a snorkeling day. I took my speargun with me for. I've never fired a speargun. I think the fish knew that, As a matter of fact I don't reqally know which fish I am supposed to try and hunt! I only got a few shots off but didn't hit anything. Actuallyn that's not true, I did manage to shoot some kelp. I practiced "CATCH AND RELEASE" with that one...

PARTY A BIT THEN CHANNEL ISLANDS WEEK

Well, It has been a classic party week. We saw a hilarious comedy show on Monday Night with a comedian named John Guy. You know when you laugh so hard that your jaw hurts? Well it was like that. This guy is going to be on Leno in a few weeks and we saw him in a room with about 20 other people. Being close to LA has it's advantages...
Tuesday and Wednesdy were good live music sessions.
It's also the first time I am leaving my boat at anchor without me on it. I feel a lot like a nervous father worried about his daughter out for the weekend. I know it will be fine but I am definately still not super relaxed about it....

Sat 14th

Bernie left this morning. All in all it was a good week with plenty of relaxing and plenty of partying. (and the boat was exactly where I left her....) I reloaded the boat with fuel and water and then went off to the anchorage to settle back in and prepare for tomorrow's departure. But then I started looking at the day and thought why not today? It was late morning but I really didn't have to go far. I'll just go across the channel and to the front of Santa Cruz Island. It's just 20 miles .
So I took off rather than anchor. Rather than spend a lazy day preparing for a short passage I put Otto and Tommy to work and started running around the boat cleaning things up and locking things down. Soon everything looked good, the sun was shining and we were making headway. I was ready to sail but there wasn't much wind...

hmmm. Well If I'm going to motor then I may as well get farther west. A quick check of the cruising guide and Bechers Anchorage on Santa Rosa is the new waypoint.

34..00.956N
120.02.736W

That's where I was going. Soon the wind filled in and the sails went up. Soon after that the wind filled in more and the first reef went in. Then the wind filled in more and the second reef went in.. The swell was only 6 to 8 feet but had 3 to 4 ft of wind wave on top. Not only that but the waves were steep and really close together. This meant that if I treid to point too high into them I would launch into the air off of one and crash into the front of the next wave. BOOM!

So now I was heading directly upwind and against the swell as the wind hovered around 20 to 25 kts. Unfortuantely this isn't the best combination for Otto. The Boat gets really squirrely on the tops of the steep waves and he doesn't react quickly enough. SO that meant I had to hand steer if I was going to make Santa Rosa. No problem !!!

Well it turns out that Santa Rosa is a lot farther than just going to Santa Cruz Island It was 5pm before I got to the anchorage About 5 hours of pounding upwind,. Yuk!! I need food and rest....

Sunday

Well that settles it. If it would have been calm this morning I would have tried for San Migel but it was still blowing. I'm not really keen on another big bashing day just to end up in a windy anchorage. I'll spend today here and set off tomorrow for the back side of Santa Cruz....

Santa Barbara for a Bit More

Ok. Looks like I am going to stay here for another week. My good friend Bernie flew down from Vancouver, BC for a weeklong getaway. We are going to settle into a week of Frosty Beverages onshore in the Santa Barbara Area. It works out great for both of us. Bernie gets a weeklong getaway and since he is getting a hotel, I get a real shower!!